François Folie (1833–1905) was a Belgian astronomer. He was the Administer at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

, director of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Cointe Observatory, and director of the

Royal Observatory of Belgium The Royal Observatory of Belgium (; ; ) has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels since 1890. It is part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The Royal Observatory was first established in S ...

Early life

Folie was born on 11 December 1833 in

Venlo Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), ...

(then in Belgium). He was the oldest of seven children. In 1830 Belgium declared itself independent from

The Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and there was a treaty discussion going on to determine the status of the regions. The treaty placed Venlo back in The Netherlands so his father moved to Liège as he was in the military and a captain in the Belgian artillery. In Belgium, his father was put in charge to teach

pyrotechnics Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating fireworks, but also includes safety matches, oxygen candles, Pyrotechnic fastener, explosive bolts (and other fasteners), parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, q ...

and artillery advancements to the army. Folie went to college in

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

and on 13 August 1855 Folie earned a mathematics and physics doctorate. His father died young and Folie had to support his mother and 6 siblings.

Later life and Bonn

He started to teach in 1857 at the University of Liège. While doing this he briefly (two months) went to Bonn and started working with Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander in astronomy. He helped in a study of

variable stars A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...

and with others assisted with a star catalog of the northern hemisphere. Also, while there, he studied thermodynamics under

Rudolf Clausius Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle ...

. He took that training back with him to Liège and started teaching thermodynamics in 1867. On 5 May 1873, Folie married Adalina (born in 1849). Folie and Adalina had 11 children. He is the father of Franz Folie, poet, playwright and Belgian historian who wrote under the alias of Franz Ansell. Folie was the Administer at the

from 1872 to 1884, it was under his administration that most of the buildings of science and medicine were built. In particular, the Cointe Observatory which held the Institute of Astrophysics. He remained director of the institute until 1893. In 1883, he succeeded

Jean-Charles Houzeau Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie (October 7, 1820 – July 12, 1888) was a Belgian astronomer and journalist. A French speaker, he moved to New Orleans after getting in trouble for his politics in Belgium. In the U.S. he continued his journalisti ...

as director of the

. In 1885 Folie became observatory director in Brussels. Because of the increase in size of Brussels it was no longer a good city to do astronomy and he built an observatory at

Uccle Uccle (French language, French, ) or Ukkel (Dutch language, Dutch, ) is one of the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the southern part of the region, it ...

. He visited the Bonn observatory several times where he worked on astronomy with Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander and Adalbert Krüger. He was a correspondent of the German physicist Rudolf Clausius and taught the theory of

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, Work (thermodynamics), work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed b ...

. He did work on the movements of a solid body (1885), in geometry (in particular with Constantin Le Paige) and on stellar reductions (Twelve tables for calculating stellar reductions 1883, Treaty of stellar reductions 1888). He was a member of the

Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium ( , sometimes referred to as ' ) is the independent learned society of science and arts of the French Community of Belgium. One of Belgium's numerous academies, it is the French-speak ...

. Towards the end of his life he published a summary of all his works under the title ''Thirty-Five Years of Mathematical and Astronomical Work''. In 1897 he retired but continued publishing until he died in Liège, Belgium on 29 January 1905.

Sources

* Eug. De Seyn, ''Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique'', Tome I, 1935 *
''Salmonsens konversationsleksikon''

References

External links

Publications of François Folie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Folie, Francois 19th-century Belgian astronomers 1833 births 1905 deaths